In his new play The Long Forgotten Dream at Sydney Theatre Company, playwright Howard Lawrence Sumner, a Ngarrindjeri man from South Australia’s Coorong region, examines deep spiritual scarring these colonial practices inflicted on generations of Aboriginal people, weaving the violent past with an unsettling present on earth and in the spirit world.

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Jeremiah Tucker (Wayne Blair), a man in his mid 50s, is coiled in grief. He lost his mother in a manner that has left him with survivor guilt; meanwhile, his archaeologist daughter, Simone (Jada Alberts), has come to see him at his house on the Coorong coast after trying to track down the stolen remains of her great-grandfather, King Tulla.

Jeremiah resents his daughter taking on this mission, for as King Tulla’s closest living male relative, it is his responsibility to seek repatriation of the remains. And in an effort to bring home King Tulla’s skull and bones, Simone unexpectedly uncovers family secrets that raise complex questions about history and identity.

An award-worthy performance: Wayne Blair in Sydney Theatre Company’s production of The Long Forgotten Dream. Photograph: Heidrun Lohr

In the second act, when Jeremiah finally uncoils and lets that pain pour out of him, alongside a consoling apparition of ancestor Gladys Dawson (the delightful veteran actor Melissa Jaffer), it is a deeply moving moment, a uniting balm for what Sumner sees as the brokenness of our nation. Here, the story is universally relatable for anyone with family members whose unending pain over the loss of loved ones has metastasised to rage. It is also an award-worthy performance from Blair, an accomplished stage actor and film director seen here in his finest role yet.

If all of this fare sounds heavy, it is leavened by the fun and sensual presence of Jeremiah’s sister Lizzie (Ningali Lawford-Wolf), who flirts with white pastor Henry Gilles (Justin Smith), a well-meaning figure who nevertheless wants to have the church colonise the homecoming ceremony of the remains of King Tulla (played, in spirit form, by Ian Wilkes).

There’s also some crackingly funny dialogue and warm humour – ushering out the pastor, Jeremiah calls out: “Don’t let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya!”

Brilliantly, composer and musician William Barton performs live on the right side of the stage, playing didgeridoo, guitar and keyboards as well as subtly singing and harmonising across the performance.

Neil Armfield, who also directed the stage version of non-Indigenous writer Kate Grenville’s novel of the frontier wars, The Secret River, does a masterful job directing here, but quite rightly in the play’s program raises the problematic issue of being a non-Indigenous artist directing such stories, while noting that Howard Sumner was insistent that he direct.

Armfield has also been a champion of Indigenous writers and performers for decades, particularly as the long-time artistic director and cofounder of Sydney’s Belvoir Street Theatre. For The Long Forgotten Dream, Armfield enlisted designer Jacob Nash, a Murri man who travelled to the Coorong to find inspiration for the rustic set, covering the stage floor of the Sydney Opera House’s Drama Theatre with sand in a nod to both country and to the dust our bodies shall become.

The play, which arose out of Sydney Theatre Company’s Rough Drafts program, is not yet a perfect one. There are times when there’s too much exposition and backstory, and the script could benefit from a fraction more editing for clarity over why and how King Tulla’s remains are still out of reach. Some lines delivered early in the performance by Alberts and Smith came across as recited rather than felt. Yet the cumulative impact of this strong team’s work is profound. As the darkness descended on the players in the final scene, I am convinced their silhouettes seemed to flicker, like shadow spirits.

•The Long Forgotten Dream is showing at the Sydney Opera House Drama Theatre until 25 August